Predicting the Future

Sean Byrnes | August 29, 2016

Predicting the future is hard. I am fairly certain of this because I’ve never won the Powerball and neither have you.

Still, you need to predict the future to make effective decisions. Knowing what has already happened (using data) is not enough, you need a model for what the future holds to decide how best to move into that future. Will demand for your product grow? Will competition drive down prices? Will your costs grow or shrink over time?

I have no doubt you can predict what you’ll be doing in an hour by checking your calendar. What about next week? Next month? Next year? The farther into the future you try to predict the harder it becomes. You need the help of both data and models to reliably predict what will happen far enough in advance that you can do something about it.

This week we’ll cover a number of different ways to predict the future for parts of your business and how it can give you an advantage in decision making over your competitors!